Garden update

It’s been a while since my last post. I don’t post anything from home. I do it from elsewhere and just haven’t got around to taking any photos to show. Anyway, I finally have some more.

A couple of weeks ago we pulled out the scrappy garden bed from the front of the house. The lavender was lovely for a while, then became leggy and unattractive. The whole area was replaced with roses. You can see our first flower above. Gorgeous.

I’m in the back yard. Behind me you can see a nice cabbage in a square pot. It’s thriving well, but has been attacked by snails/slugs lately. The good thing about the pot is that I can pick it up and move it away from the snails. Jasmine grows on the fence. Hopefully it fills up the entire boundary. Is that a new tree to my right? No, it’s my patch of broad beans! Around 7 feet high and cropping heavily. I really don’t know why this year’s crop is a foot taller than last year’s crop, but I’ve had to tie them securely against this month’s strong winds.

Remember to click each pic for an enlargement. Hope you like these photographs. I will post some more soon. Cheers.

Some Funny Pics from the Net

I Have Survived

Last Sunday I was preparing dinner. Spicy meatballs with pasta. I decided to add some chillies. I wasn't concentrating like I should. The knife slipped. The chillies were diced. And two fingers. Well, actually the tips of my second finger and thumb. I laughed it off. But when, two hours later, the bleeding would not stop, my wife insisted I visit the hospital. The photo above was taken in the waiting room, kitchen paper towelling saturated with the red stuff. The result was a couple of days wearing a massive white bandage.
But ... I survived!

Note: after the accident we ate the spicy meatballs and pasta.
Never did find those fingertips.

New Vegetable Bed

It's winter. There's not a lot of planting and harvesting to do in the garden, but I'm still pretty busy. I'm back at work, but had the last two weeks off for holidays (benefits of teaching!). I wanted a raised bed for my vegies, so sourced some hardwood timber railway sleepers. People told me that treated pine would be suitable, but I don't feel comfortable growing food near chemical treatments. And hardwood looks great - weathered and natural. Anyway, I found 4 sleepers and positioned them where I wanted the bed to go: near the house but getting full sun. A raised bed is important since drainage in this location is poor.



Once positioned, I needed to level the timbers. I borrowed a spirit level and removed turf from beneath the sleepers until level. 

 

The corners were fixed. I used galvanised plate and screws. A simple job but effective.

 

I toyed with the idea of digging up the grass turf inside the bed (the bed was set into a lawn). But instead decided to lay sheets of newspaper: quite thickly (but not too thickly). This should kill the turf and deter weeds. Then a sprinkle of blood and bone. Then a thick layer of sugar cane mulch. This mulch is nice to work with. It's finer than pea straw mulch, and opportunistic peas won't be growing in this bed! You can see the result above, with the newspaper clearly visible.

The mulched bed is above. About 8 feet square. So a possible problem will be reaching the centre of the bed from the edge. It's best not to walk on garden beds too much; compression of topsoil is not a good idea.
So I'll be getting some chunky pavers and laying a small path from the edge into the bed.

Leaving room for the path, I lay thick strips of compost over the mulch. In this case 6 strips. See above. Into these strips I planted broad beans. Why broad beans? And why not fill the beds with more compost? Broad beans (and all other legumes) can be used as "green manures" - grown, slashed just prior to pod formation (as the flowers are dropping), left on the surface of the beds (perhaps dug in slightly, but not "turned over"). Broad beans are "nitrogen fixers" - they store nitrogen in nodules on their roots. This nitrogen can then be accessed by subsequent plants grown in these beds. When the beans are about a foot high I'll heap more and more compost around them to encourage root formation. So compost will be added to the bed gradually.
And of course the slashed beans will add to the mulch.

Anyway, this vegetable bed will be ready for spring and summer.

You can see broad beans above, to the right of the picture. This is the rest of my vegetable garden mid-winter. These beans are being grown for food, of course. From extreme left to right - lettuce, row of radish, peas under trellis, 4 cabbage, row of chinese cabbage (slugs and snails love these!), broad beans, jasmine on the fence.
Behind the beans, hidden, are plant pots of cabbage.

Ok, hope this was interesting. Remember you can click on any of the photos above for enlargements.
I'm looking forward to planting out my new spring/summer vegetable bed!

Carrots - First Crop

I harvested my first carrots on the weekend. Long and straight!
I used carrot tape (seeds, evenly spaced, embedded in a light paper tape) but can't remember the variety.
Dad gave me the tape. Thanks Dad!

Latest Garden News



My vegetable garden at the start of winter. From left to right: peas about to climb their trellis, in front of the peas are lettuce, to the right and behind the peas is a big basil bush, snow peas climbing their own trellis, a row of young radish, clumps of carrot, two rows of chinese cabbage, two rows of broad beans. To the right of the broad beans are small pots of cabbage and a long pot of strawberries. The whole area is mulched with suger cane mulch.



Close up of carrots, chinese cabbage, broad beans. The white squares are offcuts from a kitchen cabinet someone was building in the neighbourhood. I happened to be driving by and scrounged them immediately. They serve as somewhere to stand when watering and weeding. Pretty handy.



My snow peas are cropping well. Every morning I pick a big handful to add to my lunch the same day.
Fresh and sweet, and totally organic.

Hope you like my pics. Click on any of them for a larger view.



Some people don't deserve to drive



I saw this pic on the internet. The note was left on the car.
You may have trouble seeing it. It reads:

"In this super-packed parking lot, I applaud your ability to find not only one spot, but four.
You, sir, are envied by all douchebag parkers." 

Some people don't deserve to live drive.